Seventh-day Adventists and the Torah on the heart.

Vic, keep up the good work
I see your wisdom as truths.
In most cases your replies are articuratly based on text that you post to reenforce biblical truth.


You're an annointed teacher of the gospel.
Thank you for being here.

My name is Crib and I approve of your message.

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@Tall, (my dear, honorably and highly respected friend)


I remember some years ago, we had a discussion about "what is the Old Covenant?" I recalled that you pointed primairly to certain text in Ex 19.
I believe that most protestants believe that the 10 commandments are the Old Covenant, can you shed some light on this issue?

Sincerely
CRIB

Cribstyl said:

Vic, keep up the good work
I see your wisdom as truths.
In most cases your replies are articuratly based on text that you post to reenforce biblical truth.


You're an annointed teacher of the gospel.
Thank you for being here.

My name is Crib and I approve of your message.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

@Tall, (my dear, honorably and highly respected friend)


I remember some years ago, we had a discussion about "what is the Old Covenant?" I recalled that you pointed primairly to certain text in Ex 19.
I believe that most protestants believe that the 10 commandments are the Old Covenant, can you shed some light on this issue?

Sincerely
CRIB

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Thank you for your very kinds words, Crib.
There are so many posts in this thread that it has become difficult to navigate through all the posts for the content that is spread all over.
Regarding the definition you questioned about the old covenant, it is defined in the body of the law itself. Of course there are several covenants, made a differing times and with differing recipients, but Jeremiah 31 and Hebrews 8 address the one that was given when the children of Israel left Egypt, which identifies Sinai.

The old covenant:

Exodus 34:27-28
27: And the LORD said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel.
28: And he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And He wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.

Deuteronomy 4:12-13
12: And the LORD spake unto you out of the midst of the fire: ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude; only ye heard a voice.
13: And he declared unto you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, even ten commandments; and he wrote them upon two tables of stone.

Victor

thecountrydoc said:

In the last few hours enough energy has been expended for everyone to make another 16 post. Unbelieveable!

Lainie my reason for saying that this whole discussion is an excersise in futility is not only because of the obvious differences expresessd but because of the lack of knowledge pertaining to the declaired topic of the OP. How is it possible to discuss and compare two items, the torah and the law, when they are two different items, produced by different writers, intended for different purposes at two different times? It is clear the question posed in the OP cannot be addressed without that question being a proper question in the first place.

Victor, may I remind you that this is not CARM. Please keep it within the guidelines of good taste.

Respectfully,
Doc / Seventh-day Adventist Forum Moderator

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Doc, torah is a term that simply means either "law" or "instruction", and it is usually translated as "law". For the pusposes of this topic, the context of the passage in Jeremiah and Hebrews are both referring to covenants, which are specific packages of law that have a recipient and a time they are given. If you were to use the legal term 'covenant' in your searches, you will find it easier to define the specific package that undergoes a transition from the old into the new.

I don't know if you have ever visited CARM, but we too have very high standards for tasteful presentation. If you feel that there's a need for me to remember that this isn't CARM, you need to identify what it is you believe is a problem.

I encourage you to visit CARM's SDA forum sometime. Many of the members there are more friendly than I am, and some visitors from CF have expressed their observation that the reality doesn't match the reputation given via the rumour mill here. The main difference in the forums is that CARM exists for the primary purpose of apologetics, and the statements that everyone and anyone post are scrutinized against the Scriptures, and deviant statements are exposed rather rapidly. The learning curve that comes from scrambling for legitimate answers is the real benefit of that environment.

Victor

honorthesabbath said:

In all my time in studying this topic, I have never seen the 10c referred to as 'ordinances'. If I missed, could someone show me?

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Legal terms are used anytime you address legal matters. Ordinances are laws, and generally share the common characteristic of penalties exacted for infractions.
Like a death sentence, for instance.

The topic of this thread is a specific body of law, known by the term God applied to it as His covenant.

For the sake of expedience, please see the posts I wrote for Doc and Cribstyl:
Mosaic covenant is a specific package of law
nice people like to learn too

Victor

TrustAndObey said:

It was enough to prove you dead wrong about Ellen White's "peculiar teaching", so it's good enough for me.

Pride cometh before the fall.

Peace out. I'm done with you.

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Lainie, Ellen White has been passed off as being an inspired prophet of God. Indeed, many of her earlier writings are peppered throughout with statements claiming "I saw", "my accompanying angel told me/showed me", and stuff like that. If that were true, then Ellen's message should have no difficulty lining up with the Scriptures.

But it does. Constantly.

Ellen White wrote as a product of her time. Her statements regarding old Jerusalem never being built again (published in 1851) flies directly against the statement Jesus made of His expectation that Jerusalem would return to its original owners after the Diaspora had completed (see Luke 21:24).
The heresy of Arianism was rampant during the mid-19th century as well, and was the impetus for similar groups such as the JW's and Mormons coming onto the scene. Ellen wrote of her vision about the plan of salvation being devised after the fall of Adam (contrast against 1 Peter 1:18-20) and portrayed Jesus as a disparate individual from the Father, showing her Arian influence. The SDA church did not adopt a trinitarian stance until the 1880's.

Likewise, the ideas she had regarding the covenants was influenced from her environment. God isn't influenced by groups of people inventing whatever doctrine suits their taste. Visions from Him wouldn't be, either. That there was an existing body of thought that could be garnered from the SDB's instead of Scripture and the Spirit of God is a testimony that Ellen wasn't divinely inspired in her thoughts. We don't need to document where Ellen got her inspiration; if it wasn't from God, the exercise of testing a prophet is completed.

With that said, I still stand behind my earlier post law of love = ministration of death:

The foundation for the thought you present isn't coming from the Scriptures - it is coming from Ellen White. Even though you haven't read her writings (as you have claimed before), you are instructed according to the fundamental beliefs of the SDA church. Imbedded in Fundamental Belief #10 is the undefined coded phrase "law of love". You can search the Bible from cover to cover and never figure out what this means. However, this joins several other fundies that are rooted in Ellen instead of the Bible:

The yoke that binds to service is the law of God. The great law of love revealed in Eden, proclaimed upon Sinai, and in the new covenant written in the heart, is that which binds the human worker to the will of God. If we were left to follow our own inclinations, to go just where our will would lead us, we should fall into Satan's snare, and become possessors of his attributes. Therefore, God confines us to His will, which is high, noble, elevating. He desires that we shall patiently and wisely take up the duties of service. {ST, June 29, 1904 par. 4}

It isn't hard to identify this "law of love" as the ten commandments, from the qualification that it was proclaimed at Sinai. This same "law of love" is what Paul called the "ministration of death" in 2 Corinthians 3:7, which makes Ellen hard to reconcile with Paul.

According to Ellen, the covenant proclaimed at Sinai existed in Eden.
Deuteronomy 5:2-3
2: The LORD our God made a covenant with us in Horeb.
3: The LORD made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day.
According to Moses' own words, Ellen was wrong.

According to Ellen, the covenant proclaimed at Sinai is what's transferred into the hearts of the believer in the new covenant.
Jeremiah 31:31-32
31: Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:
32: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD.
According to Jeremiah and the Word he received as "thus saith the LORD", Ellen was wrong. The new covenant isn't related to the old one from Sinai, the one taken away according to Hebrews 10:9.

Ezekiel reversed the role of the law and God's Spirit, saying that His Spirit was to enter us, and from that we would follow His judgments (Ezekiel 36:27). Yet it is an allusion to the same prophecy given to Jeremiah and quoted in Hebrews.

These are all points I had mentioned in my original post.
Yet you haven't addressed these.
Instead, you defend the writings of Ellen White that you were taught as a new Adventist, and you weren't told where these peculiar teachings came from.

Needless to say, they aren't Biblical.

Victor

I don't know if you have ever visited CARM, but we too have very high standards for tasteful presentation.

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I've been to CARM and was shocked to see a person who frequently posts in CF happily spewing the "F" word with relish when she found out that the word was OK to use in CARM. And you call this 'tasteful'? Ah huh!!

tall73 said:

That would be in poor taste.

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Agreed. Once a moderator got a hold of that, I would expect the offending member to receive an immediate boot out. I have never seen that, and there is actually a text filter on the vBulletin software used there that mandates you change our favorite beast of burden from its usual King James title to "donkey" to get through the filter.

honorthesabbath, I have something over 5000 posts on CARM, and I haven't personally experienced what you describe.

WOW! I'm away for a few days and this thread just explodes! Good postings Vic.

Honor I've never ever seen that at CARM.

AT

Honor has CARM confused with a different website that CFians go to in order to vent about CF...uberchristians.

Why hasn't anyone commented on the fact that in Colossians 2..."which ARE a shadow of things to COME" was used in present tense, after the first coming of Christ?

TrustAndObey said:

Honor has CARM confused with a different website that CFians go to in order to vent about CF...uberchristians.

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Thank you for clearing up the apparent problem. I was concerned that honor was describing things that had several of us who frequent CARM scratching our heads and wondering what she had seen, and where.

TrustAndObey said:

Why hasn't anyone commented on the fact that in Colossians 2..."which ARE a shadow of things to COME" was used in present tense, after the first coming of Christ?

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The primary reason is that it is not the topic of this thread.
However, what I believe is causing you difficulty is realizing that the perfect tense of "come" refers to the reality of Jesus Christ when Colossians was penned. The prose rendered in ancient languages is cleaned up for the modern mind in some of the newer translations quite accurately:

Colossians 2:16-17 NIV
16 Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day.
17 These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.

Victor

You left out a few translations. Actually, the majority of translations, so I'll help you out here:

NKJV
which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.

ESV
These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

NASB
things which are a {mere} shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ.

RSV
These are only a shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ.

ASV
which are a shadow of the things to come; but the body is Christ's.

Young
which are a shadow of the coming things, and the body [is] of the Christ;

Darby
which are a shadow of things to come; but the body [is] of Christ.

Webster
Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body [is] of Christ.

HNV
which are a shadow of the things to come; but the body is Messiah's.

Edit...too small...BRB

TrustAndObey said:

You left out a few translations. Actually, the majority of translations, so I'll help you out here:

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Are you really having as much trouble understanding this passage as you make it sound, or are you merely writing material for no other reason than dissention? After all, I didn't need to quote multiple translations; they all say the same thing once you understand the narrative they render.

As I mentioned in my previous post:

The prose rendered in ancient languages is cleaned up for the modern mind in some of the newer translations quite accurately:

Colossians 2:16-17 NIV
16 Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day.
17 These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.

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All you need to do is return the verse in question into its context, and you can see that the prose the ancients wrote in to describe events is not today's common usage. The context identifies the subject, and from there you can determine the perspective any author writing in any time is using as a viewpoint.

The ancients commonly wrote from origin to destination, so that they look forward. The Greek and literal translations render this pattern as the author thought.
Today we more commonly write from our present and look backward. This is how modern translations such as the NIV and NLT render sentences, for the modern mindset.

You cannot extract the meaning of verse 17 because you have removed it from verse 16. Verse 16 sets the origin, and verse 17 identifies Christ as the destination.

Has Christ already come when this epistle was written?
Yes, He had.
Then if you wrote this passage, you would describe the law in the past.
But, that isn't how the ancients wrote.
Paul started from the law and looked forward to Christ.

This same pattern is found in Galatians 3:17, where the law is written future from Abraham, instead of looking back at Abraham before the law existed.

Are you still having trouble with Colossians?
The prose of the narrative is readily apparent as long as you don't divorce passages from their context.

Victor

TrustAndObey said:

Honor has CARM confused with a different website that CFians go to in order to vent about CF...uberchristians.

Why hasn't anyone commented on the fact that in Colossians 2..."which ARE a shadow of things to COME" was used in present tense, after the first coming of Christ?

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Hi Trust and Obey. Your argument in Colossians seems to be valid, and the text you sited are in the present tense. But your premise fails in light of scripture and context. A person who has been feasting on the meat of the word would easly see through your failed argument.

Contextually you have a segment of scripture (Col 2:16-17) that you have disassociated from its parts, that you may make your argument for sabbath observance. You have did such while ignoring that to make your claim for sabbath observance you must also make a claim for new moons as well.

According to your argument, sabbath is still binding because it is a shasow of what is to come...as in the second coming of Chirst. But heres what you have failed to understand. It is a third person singular of the word.

In verse 17, we have "which are a shadow of things to come." The word translated "are" in english is a third person singular present indicative. Meaning that its contemporary action of another word or indicative of the word which we find in the first person, but now spoken of in the third person. "it (s)" or they" (meat, drink, holy day, new moon, sabbath.) are all contemporary. So how can these things all be contemporary today?

Easly...if one is not joined to the body of Christ! If one is not of the new covenant, then they are of the old covenant of works which requires one to observe laws and ordinances. Kindly look at the contrast:

(Col 2:17) Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.

The little word "but" means much here...it is a contrast of those who are outside of Christ and those who are in Christ (the body).

Out side of Christ is to be under bondage to law, that they can be lead to Christ.
(Gal 3:24) Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.


Paul even goes further in Col 2:

(Col 2:20) Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances,
(Col 2:21) (Touch not; taste not; handle not;
(Col 2:22) Which all are to perish with the using after the commandments and doctrines of men?
(Col 2:23) Which things have indeed a shew of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body; not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh.


So to continue in the shadow is to be outside of the body. In Christ we have the true reality of the shadow.

AT

Adventtruth said:

Hi Trust and Obey. Your argument in Colossians seems to be valid, and the text you sited are in the present tense. But your premise fails in light of scripture and context. A person who has been feasting on the meat of the word would easly see through your failed argument.

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Is it in your capacity to have a conversation without the jabs, AT?

AT said:

Contextually you have a segment of scripture (Col 2:16-17) that you have disassociated from its parts, that you may make your argument for sabbath observance. You have did such while ignoring that to make your claim for sabbath observance you must also make a claim for new moons as well.

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How many times does Colossians 2:14-17 get taken out of context to try to prove the opposite conclusion about Sabbath observance? I'm taking the SAME verses and trying to present an alternative view, and I think that's acceptable.

I've said several times, in this thread alone, that I have recently been convicted to explore the keeping of some of the feasts. For instance, NO ONE to date has proven to me how the Feast of Trumpets was fulfilled by Christ. In fact, I am having trouble finding where ANY of the fall feasts were fulfilled.

Some of the feasts were centered around a new moon (Psa 81:3).

AT said:

According to your argument, sabbath is still binding because it is a shasow of what is to come...as in the second coming of Chirst. But heres what you have failed to understand. It is a third person singular of the word.

In verse 17, we have "which are a shadow of things to come." The word translated "are" in english is a third person singular present indicative. Meaning that its contemporary action of another word or indicative of the word which we find in the first person, but now spoken of in the third person. "it (s)" or they" (meat, drink, holy day, new moon, sabbath.) are all contemporary. So how can these things all be contemporary today?

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The word "are" is translated to "IS" throughout the Bible...but since it was several things being mentioned, the word "are" was used in proper grammatical order. Present tense at the time it was being written.

AT said:

Easly...if one is not joined to the body of Christ! If one is not of the new covenant, then they are of the old covenant of works which requires one to observe laws and ordinances. Kindly look at the contrast:

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The Colossians were Christians, AT. They weren't Jews and Paul was telling them not to let anyone judge them for the observance of Sabbath. Does that tell you anything?

AT said:

(Col 2:17)

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AT said:

Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.

The little word "but" means much here...it is a contrast of those who are outside of Christ and those who are in Christ (the body).

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That little word "but" can also mean AND. AND the body of the Christ. It's talking about the Christ's church....His people.

Individuals cannot judge, but the church CAN. There are other verses that say that in scripture as you well know.

The Colossians were Christians...let me prove that with scripture so there's no argument: Colossians 1:2 To the saints and faithful brethren in Christ which are at Colosse: Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

They were Christians and Paul told them not to let anyone judge them for the observance of Sabbath. Interesting, no?

AT said:

Out side of Christ is to be under bondage to law, that they can be lead to Christ.

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AT said:

(Gal 3:24) Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

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They were in Christ!! Read Colossians 1:2 again.

AT said:

Paul even goes further in Col 2:

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AT said:

(Col 2:20) Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances,
(Col 2:21) (Touch not; taste not; handle not;
(Col 2:22) Which all are to perish with the using after the commandments and doctrines of men?
(Col 2:23) Which things have indeed a shew of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body; not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh.

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There ya go! Ignore the commandments of MEN and obey the commandments of God!

AT said:

So to continue in the shadow is to be outside of the body. In Christ we have the true reality of the shadow.

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They followed shadows until the first coming of Christ (sacrifices, Hebrews 10:1) and we have shadows that assure us of His second coming.

Shadows are a good thing brother....Psa 36:7 How excellent is Thy lovingkindness, O God! therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of Thy wings.

Psa 63:7 Because thou hast been my help, therefore in the shadow of Thy wings will I rejoice.